These Maps Show Why Implementing Gun Control Legislation Will Be So Hard

President Barack Obama has been pretty vocal about what he thinks of the current state of gun regulations—they're nowhere near as strict as he thinks they should be. But his battle for stricter gun laws will be exactly that: a battle.

The gun industry is booming. The demand for guns and ammo has never been higher. In 2012, the FBI conducted more background checks on people who wanted to buy guns than ever before.

So are profits. Since Obama took office in 2008, profits for some gun manufacturers are up almost 200%.

In 2012, the American industry for guns and ammunitions totaled about $12 billion, according to an estimate by the IBIS group. In 2011, gun companies paid more than $5 billion in federal, state and excise taxes, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a pro-gun organization.

The Gun Industry Employed 98,759 People In 2012.

This interactive map shows how many people were employed by the gun industry in each state:

With 10,835 workers, there were more people employed in the gun industry in California than anywhere else in the United States. In second place is Texas, which employed 5,986 people in the gun industry in 2012.

Business InsiderChart: Change in taxes paid by gun industry from 2008 to 2011.

Last year, the FBI did 19,463,832 background checks on people who wanted to buy guns.

This interactive map shows how many background checks of people who wanted to purchase guns the FBI conducted in each state:

Interactive map: click on any state to see how many people wanted to buy guns there. A darker color means more people wanted to buy guns there. Source: FBI NICS

There's a reason why the gun industry is so profitable: There's a huge market for them. The number of gun-purchase related background checks the FBI conducts is a pretty good indicator of how many people want to buy firearms. In 2012, the FBI conducted 19,463,832 background checks, according to FBI data.

The number of people who wanted to buy guns in 2012 went up by more than 3 million in a year

This interactive map shows by how much the number of background checks conducted by the FBI increased or fell in each state:

Interactive map: click on any state to see how many more people wanted to buy guns in 2012 than in 2011. The darker the red, the higher the increase, blue and white mean the number decreased. Source: FBI NICS

Kentucky saw the highest increase in gun-related background checks, while that number decreased quite dramatically in Utah, and to a lesser degree, in Indiana.